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  • Published: 3 December 1998
  • ISBN: 9780140252309
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 592
  • RRP: $65.00

Caprice And Rondo

The House of Niccolo 7




The exquisitely-researched standalone prequel series to Dorothy Dunnett's revered Lymond Chronicles, following the enigmatic Nicholas de Fleury in Continental Europe.

January 1474, in the deep cold of an ice-bound Danzig: a man is spending a frivolous winter not facing up to his responsibilities ... It is the merchant Niccolo, diviner, soldier, banker to Kings; shunned by all who know him after revelations of hismurderous mischief-making. But his talents are too great to be squandered, and a subtle political dance ensues as rivals in Poland, Venice, and Persia bid for his services in trade and war and diplomacy. Niccolo has lost his family; but he will discover a new purpose in life...

  • Published: 3 December 1998
  • ISBN: 9780140252309
  • Imprint: Michael Joseph
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 592
  • RRP: $65.00

About the author

Dorothy Dunnett

Dorothy Dunnett was born in 1923 in Fife, Scotland. She attended James Gillespie's High School for Girls where she was Intermediate Dux and specialised in art, leading to an early career as a professional portrait painter. At the same time she became an executive officer in the British Civil Service working first in Edinburgh and then moving to Glasgow. At her husband's suggestion, she began writing fiction in her late thirties and has now published 22 novels. Her first book, the bestseller Game of Kings was published in 1961 and was the first of the six-part Lymond series, set in the 16th century. She has since written a series of seven modern mystery novels featuring a yachtsman called Johnson, a single 11th century novel about Macbeth, King Hereafter, and a further series of historical novels called The House of Niccolo, set in the 15th century. The eighth and last book in this series is about to be published and will be celebrated later this year by international gatherings of readers in Edinburgh and Philadelphia, the latest of many formal and informal meetings of readers. All her novels have been published on both sides of the Atlantic and have been translated into many European languages. In 1984, readers of Dunnett's work in North America launched a regular private correspondence magazine which is now worldwide and published quarterly with subscribers in Australia and New Zealand. In recent years this has expanded to the Internet and is one of many sites which now discuss her work.

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Praise for Caprice And Rondo

Praise for Dorothy Dunnett

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A storyteller who could teach Scheherazade a thing or two about pace, suspense and imaginative invention

The New York Times

Marvellous, breathtaking

The Times

A masterpiece of historical fiction

Washington Post

Lashings of excitement, colour and subtlety

The Times

One of the greatest tale-spinners since Dumas

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Vivid, engaging, densely plotted - are almost certainly destined to be counted among the classics of popular fiction

New York Times